Time for Change
by MidnightRose24
Summary: Thalia's out of the Hunt and that means it's time for some change to occur in her life- starting with seeing a little more of who Hades' son really is. Note: written for marikunin. One-shot.


"To your left!" I heard Nico shout. I turned to see another hellhound bounding towards me. Damn things!

I aimed my spear, waited for the hound to get close enough, and thrust it forward. I missed, but the hellhound didn't. Pain shot through my body like an electric current- searing and paralyzing. A cry of pain escaped my mouth.

"Thalia!" I didn't know where Nico was. I was pretty much on my own. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a hound growling, ready to pounce. As it pounced I positioned myself as quickly as I could and- _bingo_!- stabbed it right in the jugular, turning it into a pile of gold dust. It was quiet now. I still didn't know where Nico was.

"Nico?" My voice was carried away by the wind. There was either a breeze like no other tonight, or my hip was in serious trouble. I hoped the latter wasn't the right answer. "Nico!" I called out again. Just before I yelled for him for a third time, he came stumbling out of the bushes on the side of the road. "Gods, where were you?" I snapped at him, though I was secretly relieved that nothing had happened to him.

"Narnia," he responded, his tone sarcastic. "I was taking care of the other two hellhounds." He stopped and took a good look at me. "Styx, your side looks awful! Is that why you screamed?"

I rolled my eyes. "Thanks and obviously."

"Come here," Nico ordered impatiently. He reached behind him with one hand and turned me around with his other hand. Whatever wound I had stung really badly. I gritted my teeth to keep myself from screaming again. My side started to get hot and I frantically looked down to see what Nico was doing. He was pouring nectar on me.

"Where did you get that?" I questioned, ignoring the fact that he was touching the bare skin on my hip. (Not many people were allowed to do that, in case you didn't know.)

He chuckled. "I learned how to pull things out of the shadows about two years ago."

"I have been gone for a long time now, huh?" My voice was quieter than I thought it would be.

Nico turned me around to face him, my side feeling much better now, and smiled just the tinniest bit. "Yeah, I would say almost three years is a long time."

I sighed. "I can't believe I'm out of the hunt. I'm not a huntress anymore." It felt odd to say it aloud. It felt even odder to have it be true.

"Neither can I," he agreed. "Your shirt is destroyed," he pointed out.

"Oh," I said unconcerned, looking at my Asking Alexandria shirt that was now shredded on the side. "I guess it is." Another breeze picked up and I shivered.

"Here." Nico stripped his jacket off and handed it to me.

I gratefully took it and put it on, feeling a lot warmer. It smelled like Irish Spring soap. "Thank you."

He answered quite stoically, "You're welcome."

"Is this the same jacket that you had the last I saw you?" I asked him, recognizing a tear near the right pocket.

"Yeah." He shrugged. "I can't believe I still fit in it. I hardly ever wear it anymore."

I eyed it in disbelief. "I can't believe _I_ fit into it. I'm not _that_ small." I paused. "Am I?"

He smirked. "Don't worry; it was always a little big on me because I got it a couple of sizes bigger than necessary."

"Okay, but am I really that small?" I repeated myself, finding it a bit annoying that he was ignoring my question.

"Honestly? Yes, you are." He shrugged.

I bit back my reply- too snarky to say when he had just healed me. Instead, I said to him, "It wasn't that big on you, though. Look at you now! How can you get this thing on? How tall are you now, anyway?"

"Six-two," he answered.

"Damn!" I realized that he was a lot taller, but I hadn't realized that he had grown a whole foot. He shrugged once more. "So where did you get this 'miracle jacket'?" I teased.

"I stole it from some vintage shop out on the east coast."

I laughed, not believing him for one second. "You _stole_ it?"

He raised one eyebrow. "Yeah, so?"

"Oh," I answered, baffled by the fact that he clearly wasn't lying. "I just hadn't expected you to do something like that back then." Honestly, I hadn't. I have no idea what he did during all that time away from camp- or what he does now- but I didn't think stealing was his thing. I thought that was more of Connor and Travis's thing. Maybe they're part of the reason for him doing it…

"Yeah, well…" he trailed off. "Come on," he said after a moment. "Let's get to camp."

I grabbed his hand and we stepped into a shadow- except it felt more like we were being eaten by one. The sight of camp made me want to smile and possibly even cry. Instead, I thanked Nico one last time and started to slip his jacket off.

"Keep it," he said. "I don't wear it that much, anyway. I'll get it back tomorrow."

I did my best to appear unfazed. "Okay, see you tomorrow."

"Night," he called over his shoulder, already headed towards his cabin.

I walked into Cabin 1—no, _my_ cabin- and smiled, thinking of all the good times. I had missed this place (okay, maybe not this cabin specifically) more than I wanted to admit.

"Home sweet home," I whispered, thinking of how odd that sounded after all this time.

I decided that I would wait until morning to go to talk to Chiron about me being back. But for now, I wanted to go to bed. Dropping out of the hunt, unexpectedly meeting up with a guy that I haven't seen in almost three years (who turned out to be...well, not what I had expected), and getting attacked by monsters was more than enough for me for one day. I climbed into bed and fell into a much appreciated slumber, not bothering to take off Nico's jacket.

**A/N: ****I wrote this months ago when I had a conversation with****marikunin****about how Nico got his famous aviator jacket, and she gave me the prompt for this about how he stole it, but I didn't know if I liked how it came out. I decided to edit it and post here because why the hell not? So enjoy.****Or don't. You know, that's cool too.**


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